Tim DeRoche, author of "The Ballad of Huck and Miguel"

children’s lit

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But, in the Atlantic, Collen Gillard uses Huckleberry Finn to explain how the UK has better children’s stories than the US does. Huck Finn is her straw man.

She contrasts Harry Potter and Huck Finn:

In a literary duel for the hearts and minds of children, one is a wizard-in-training at a boarding school in the Scottish Highlands, while the other is a barefoot boy drifting down the Mississippi, beset by con artists, slave hunters, and thieves. One defeats evil with a wand, the other takes to a raft to right a social wrong.

I think I even agree with her primary thesis. But she shouldn’t use Huck Finn to make the point. Her description of Huck Finn sucks all the joy and humor out of Twain’s yarn.